A Perfect Predicament
by Doll-like
Summary: Rachel contemplates her social status with a little help from Finn and Quin. She acknowledges hidden fears and accepts them, but something new rises that she hadn't suspected. Short drabble. Canon.


This is my first Fanfiction that I've published; please be nice. It's mostly about Rachel questioning her status and Rachel's perceptions of the social positioning of herself and others in the school. Also, it's got a bit of unrequited love in it.

A PERFECT PREDICAMENT

It was curious how alone Rachel felt considering she was in a room filled with chattering people; she felt silence pressing upon her, though there was an orchestra of noise, including rain pattering against the windows of the canteen and two girls speculating idly about their current relationship statuses before her. She had often wondered about what would happen if the school's delicate foundations of the intertwining friendships and relationships between the pupils would break; they would have to rebuild themselves, reform their past and sculpt it into the future. She sighed exasperatedly, tired of speculation, which was spreading like wild-fire about her at the moment. To be perfectly honest, which Rachel most certainly was, she had tried to persuade herself she simply did not care what others thought about her. Everybody was entitled to their own opinion. In life, people liked and disliked you. Most people disliked her. She was too loud, too confident, too sure of herself. And yet she refused to acknowledge that it was her own fault; she was trapped within herself, caged behind this idea that no matter she said or did, people would reject her and ignore her.

She thought that it was one of the inevitabilities of being talented. People were jealous. They yearned to have her voice, to sing the words exactly like she did. It was effortless for her, but she worked hard to retain her knowledge of the music industry. The girl behind her was watching her disdainfully; Rachel saw that it was Quin, the queen and ruler of the unworthy peasants swarming about her. Quin was perfect in every sense of the word. Her beauty was intimidating; it made everybody look pale compared to her. She was wearing her cheer-leading clothes, which revealed long, lean limbs and creamy-coloured flesh that was neither fat nor thin, but immaculate. Her blonde hair was scraped back behind her ears, revealing sharp cheekbones. Her eyebrows formed two arches over her small, wide-spaced eyes which were framed with thick, dark eyelashes. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line; her eyebrows were raised. Rachel attemped futilely to smile; she looked merely as if she were grimacing. Quin smiled maliciously back; her ice-white teeth glimmered as if embedded with diamonds. Rachel would have wanted to kick her, but violence was frowned upon in her family.

"Hey," said Quin so abruptly Rachel started. "I like your skirt. It reminds me of kindergarten, when reindeers were cool." Quin's voice was low...quietly sly as it ebbed away Rachel's confidence. Rachel raised herself to her full height and inhaled sharply, uncertain of what to do.

"True fashion never ages," Rachel said, smiling and extracting a miniscule piece of her own dark hair from her white sweater. "Like beauty, I suppose." Rachel imagined Quin with sunken eyes and wrinked skin; she giggled.

"Is that why you look so old now?" asked Quin. "You can borrow my mom's anti-ageing cream. Even she looks younger than you." Quin took an apple and balanced it in the centre of her tray, still wearing that sickly smile. Rachel turned on her heel and walked away; voices shouted insults at Quin in her head as she walked.

Tears emerged from Rachel's eyes as she stared at her reflection in the mirror in her locker. Her cage had cracked around her and out had risen the creature that had been so full of emotion for all these years. Behind her were the boys who normally antagnoized her, but they had saved her dignity today, seeing her crying and sniffling. It was then, in her quiet contemplation, that Finn apeared, wearing an awkward smile. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Rachel truthfully. "Maybe you can tell me. Ask your girlfriend."

"Ah," he said, searching for words around him as if they might be etched in the locker door. "Yeah. I mean, she can be a little out of hand. I'm sorry. She didn't mean it."

"It's not your fault," Rachel said, shaking her head; realization sank within her brain. "I know. It's not even Quin's fault. It's me. I shouldn't be like this. I need to be sure of myself." She stared up at his face in awe, perplexed at this sudden information. "I understand that they want you." She pointed to a bouncing Puckerman, who waved promptly.

He left, leaving her feeling like she had never done before. She had met the realization that it was _her_ all along in his great form, in his eyes and in his face and in his words, which had slipped from his mouth like velevt which unravelled her and trapped her at the same. She was free of her worries, but now infatuated with him simutaneously. It was starting and ending at the same time.


End file.
